K Project

K Project or more commonly known only as “K” is a Japanese action and supernatural manga series written by GoRa.
K Project is illustrated by Yui Kuroe and started serialization back in May 2012 in Kodansha’s Aria magazine.
As of today, there have been 3 tankobon volumes released under the title of Project K.
Go Hands Studios spearheaded the anime adaptation of Project K together with Shingo Suzuki as the director for the entire show.
Project K made is grand debut on October 2012 across several Japanese television networks including ATX and TBS. Project K ended on December 2012 of the same year with 13 endlessly satisfying episodes.

PLOT:

Set in a world where history has taken a slightly different course from the one we’re familiar with, K Project follows the story of a young boy who finds himself caught in the crossfire in a psychic war between seven notorious kings.
Talk about secluded, Ashinaka High School is known for its unique setting as the entire campus is built on an island.
Yashiro Isana has lived a relatively ordinary life in the techonologically-advanced city of Shizume.
Yashiro is quite friendly with everyone at school and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong about him except for the fact that he keeps forgetting where he placed his school-issued PDA.
Everything was going smoothly till the day Tatara Totsuka, a member of the notorious HOMRA gang, gets murdered.
Not much is known about his murder except for the fact that the murderer bears an uncanny resemblance or rather undeniably identical appearance to Yashiro.
Yashiro goes on an errand in town for the upcoming festival, only to be chased by some intimidating-looking men who turn out to be Red Clansmen of the HOMRA gang seeking vengeance for their comrade’s death.
Everyone suspects Yashiro to be the murderer only to find out that a mysterious third person is actually behind the murders and pulling the strings behind the curtains, someone who is quite dangerous and powerful.

CHARACTERS:

Yashiro Isana is supposedly a normal high school teenager until the day he finds out that he is being pursued by several factions over the death of one Tatare Totsuka. It wasn’t till later did he discover that he was once Adolf Weismann, the former Silver King. Back in the day, he was a renowned researcher in Germany who experimented with the mysterious Dresden Slate. Due to rather unfortunate events, he became amnesiac finds himself trapped in the body of a teenager boy. Despite being a silly and carefree person as he is portrayed to be, Yashiro is actually remarkably clever and manages to pull off even the most insane trick you can think of against notorious gangs like HOMRA (Red King’s group) or Scepter-4 (Blue King’s group).

Kuroh Yatogami, also known as the “Black Hound”, is a highly skilled swordsman and the former vassal of the deceased Colorless King, Ichigen Miwa. In respect of his late master’s wishes, he is on a mission to hunt down the next “Colorless King”, whom he is believes to be Yashiro Isana. Due to the recent murder of Tatara Totsuka, Kuroh is led to believe that Yashiro has gone down the dark path and it now falls onto him to kill him before it is too late. He is later convinced by Yashiro and later becomes a clansman of the Silver King. He is portrayed to be quiet, serious and composed even to the point that he can get stubborn and hot-headed especially when it comes to his duty and his mission.

Neko is a Female Strain who later gets extremely attached to Yashiro and becomes his pet cat. She is deeply attached to Yashiro that she will go to great lengths to keep him safe. Her carefree, playful and mischievious personality always annoys Kuroh and the two has been at odds at each other since then. She has the uncanny ability to create illusions as well as shapeshift and even turn invisible. It was later discovered that her true powers lie in sensory interference where she can affect a person’s perception to their surroundings. It was also revealed later in the show that she has the ability to manipulate memories and was in fact the one behind Shiro’s amnesia and the reason why he now thinks that he is just an ordinary high school student.

UPDATE:

Since the big debut of K Project, GoRa, the man behind the original manga series, has worked on several sequel manga series and spin off series.
His “K: Stray Dog Story” manga got published on November 2012 and “K: Days of Blue” got serialized since November 2012.
Go Hands Studios also announced that they were working on an anime film under the same title which made its way to the big screens last July 2014.

Other similar shows to K Project would include Air Gear and Getbackers wherein the whole premise of the story involves kings, in their own right, with superpowers fighting against each other.